1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates a novel method for obtaining a color image by thermal development using a photosensitive member for photography.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a method known as conventional color photography, the so-called color negative usually contains a layer in which blue light is recorded and a yellow dye image is formed, a layer in which green light is recorded and a magenta dye image is formed, and a layer in which red light is recorded and a cyan dye image is formed, and a developing agent is oxidized in a process wherein silver halide particles containing a latent image are reduced to silver in conducting developing treatment and the oxidized material is reacted with a coupler (coupling) to form a dye image. The undeveloped silver halide and the developed silver are removed in the subsequent bleaching and fixing process, and color paper is exposed to a light passed through the obtained negative dye image and a color print is obtained via the same development, bleaching and fixing processes.
Further, there is also known a method in which after photoelectric reading of image information contained in the above-described color negative, the image information is converted into image information for recording by performing image treatment. Color images are obtained on other print material through this image information. In particular, a digital photo printer has been developed in which the above-described image information is converted to a digital signal, and a photosensitive material such as color paper and the like is scanned and exposed to a recording light modulated by the digital signal to obtain a finished print. An example thereof is described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 7-15,593.
The above described methods are based on normal wet developing, bleaching and fixing, and the processes are complicated.
JP-A No. 9-146,247 discloses a method in which a photosensitive element comprising a support carrying thereon a photosensitive layer containing a silver halide particle, coloring developer, coupler and binder and a treating element comprising a support carrying thereon a treating layer containing a base precursor are used and the photosensitive element is exposed in image-wise fashion, then, heat development is conducted in the presence of a small amount of water between the photosensitive element and the treating element to form an image on the photosensitive element, and a color image is obtained on other recording material according to this image information. This image formation method can provide an image having high image quality more simply and quickly than the developing method of conventional photography. However, the image obtained on the photosensitive material is somewhat unstable, and if the image is to be read sometime after development, only degraded image information can be obtained in some cases. Improvement in storage stability of photosensitive elements after development is desired.